Deep NIR Survey of the Pipe Nebula II

We present a new set of high-resolution dust extinction maps of the nearby and essentially starless Pipe Nebula
molecular cloud. We constructed extinction maps from a concerted deep near-infrared imaging survey with the ESO-
VLT, ESO-NTT, CAHA 3.5 m telescopes, and 2MASS data. Many results, including the tantalizing clusters of starless cores, in the image above.